Leftist President Nicolas Maduro, of Venezuela, continues desperately to try to
fit into and wear the vacant and tattered shoes of the nation's late President Hugo Chavez.

To say that the misguided Maduro
could actually help Venezuela by struggling to live up to the Chavez legacy, would be as farcical of a façade as the
smoke and mirrors of an old and tired magic show that was perpetuated against the once proud Venezuelan homeland by Chavez
himself for 14 destructive years.

In truth, the Chavez iron-fisted reign was exceedingly one of a lack of record of transparency, of
disrespecting Venezuelans and the free world's right to be informed of a world leader's governance, and the ability
to continue to lead a global nation.

Prior to his death Chavez anointed Maduro as his Vice President, and after announcing
his cancer had reappeared Chavez strong-armed the forced endorsement of Maduro to be Venezuela's future president to anyone
that would listen; and as his successor to carry on the Chavez version of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Following the March 2013 death of Chavez, Maduro, who had previously worked as a bus driver in Caracas
and a union activist, served as acting president until elections were held on April 14, 2013, when he came away with a controversial
razor thin 1.5 point victory.

Many of the poor in Caracas were often placated and misled by Hugo Chavez, who frequently paraded
as a martyr for the poor during campaign and election times. Chavez routinely touted his devotion to the poor with
his Bolivarian Revolution, and he spoke of a mass movement to implement popular democracy, economic independence, an equitable
distribution of revenues, and an end to political corruption. Too, he vowed to “move forward even more aggressively”
to create his version of socialism.

Still, since the death of Chavez – and under Maduro – Venezuela's poor continue to
live below the poverty line, in squalor and unsafe homes, while the nation suffers scarcities that include little food on
supermarket shelves and rolling blackouts of electricity, among other issues – that even include toilet paper shortages.

Recently, Venezuelan
officials were accused of “forging emails” to accuse government adversaries of plotting to kill President Maduro. Party leaders
of the ruling Socialist Party said, in May, that government critics were planning to "annihilate" Maduro as part
of a “planned coup, showing images of emails they said were evidence of the plot.”

Yet records and reports maintain
there were "many indications of user manipulation." One report, revealing records subpoenaed from Google, showed
that messages attributed to a consultant, Pedro Burelli, had never actually been sent.

The infamous charlatan Hugo Chavez frequently
declared there were CIA conspiracies against his government and that U.S. invasions were imminent; as well as planned assassinations
against him that he claimed to uncover. He persistently warned of U.S. invasion to take Venezuela's
oil reserves. \

Much of Hugo Chavez's verbal and venomous regurgitations are borrowed from his mentor and idyllic
persona, Cuba's Fidel Castro. The borrowed page of doctrine, from Castro's fifty-plus years of oppressive rule against
the Cuban people, demonstrates a verbatim diatribe of U.S. paranoia that was used by the two leftist leaders to justify enormous
defense and espionage spending. Since 2005, Chavez spent billions of dollars for Russian arms and military aircraft.

Chavez and Maduro continued
to tout their admiration, allegiance and support to Castro's Cuba, where the failures of another bankrupt and tired communist
regime have decimated the country for decades and inflicted massive harm to its people.

Venezuelans have had ample time to reflect
and digest the failures of socialist rule under Chavez, and now Maduro. And it is clear that the economy continues to
fail, while crime and violence are soaring.

Furthermore, the past regime, and now Maduro's, have consistently refused to explain
how such an oil-rich country has fallen financially and failed the people? Perhaps the Chavez claim, that the U.S. will invade
to take their oil, should prompt Venezuelans to ask for a better accounting from their professed leaders.

Venezuela has been,
and remains, one of the most violent nations in the world, plus there are newsworthy accusations of endemic corruption and
deep official involvement in drug trafficking. As well, Maduro is continuing with Chavez era deceptions within deceptions
to avoid describing a systematically corrupt administration that has squandered billions of dollars of Venezuelan revenues,
much of it still unaccounted for.

Maduro and his Chavismo cohorts who continue to support the legacy of Hugo Chavez, perpetuate the
myth and continuing deceit, or are blind to see that Chavez probably inflicted more lasting structural damage on Venezuela’s
political institutions, economy and people than any other president in the history of the nation.

All this as world reports have
revealed the acquired personal wealth of Hugo Chavez, which at the time of his death exceeded US$1 billion.

And Maduro's?

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Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global threat
mitigation firm headquartered in northern Virginia. His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.